This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Leeds fans were a bit disheartened earlier this week as they reacted to Izzy Brown’s good start to life at Luton Town.
Indeed, the midfielder has created more assists than any other player in the Championship this term, and understandably, that revelation has annoyed a number of United supporters.
However, a closer look at things shows that supporters shouldn’t actually be hung up on Brown’s successes.
Maybe Marcelo Bielsa was right to not play him last season, and a look at his stats in the current campaign shows that he wouldn’t actually be that useful a player for the Whites.
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To begin with we have to acknowledge that Leeds don’t have a problem with chance creation.
They top the xG league table by quite some way, but it’s poor finishing that’s costing them, not the inability to carve out chances.
It’s hard to believe that Brown would offer much improvement on that front as Leeds have created 171 chances this term. In fact, Leeds have created more chances at this point than they had this time last year, despite the fact they dominated their rivals in terms of chance creation in 2018/19.
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We also have to look at what makes Bielsa’s team tick, and it’s quite obvious when you look at the stats.
Leeds dominate possession in almost every game they play as their average possession for this season in 59.6 per cent.
Of course, you need a high pass success rate to go alongside that, and Leeds’ is exceptional at 80.7%.
This may be one of the reasons Bielsa neglected Brown at times last term.
The Chelsea man’s pass success rate stands at just 72.9%, which is over 17% lower than Adam Forshaw and almost 10% lower than Mateusz Klich.
All in all, Brown wouldn’t add anything new to Leeds’ team.
They don’t need to create more chances – they need to finish them off, and his presence could have been a hindrance as he’s not accurate enough with the passes he makes to fit into the way the Argentine wants his team to play.